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Journal ArticleDOI

Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality

01 Jan 1985-The Philosophical Review (Basil Blackwell)-Vol. 83, Iss: 1, pp 142
TL;DR: Lawler as mentioned in this paper argued that being for the freeze means that one is not for disarmament, which is hardly a rational position in the sense that it is suspect if not immoral, in the eyes of some.
Abstract: that a plurality of the American Catholic bishops endorse a nuclear freeze (p. 4), saying that they are thus "taking their stance with Moscow,55 which is for a freeze, and not with the Vatican, which "is still in favor of disarmament?not a freeze.55 To make any sense at all, Mr. Lawler must mean that being for the freeze means that one is not for disarmament? hardly a rational position. One recalls here the arguments, during the 19305s and 19405s, that being for racial justice in the United States was suspect if not immoral, in the eyes of some, because the communists also favored it.
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide a descriptive typology and normative analysis of the ways boundaries are being questioned in Europe. But they do not discuss the relationship between polities and the EU.
Abstract: This introduction provides a descriptive typology and normative analysis of the ways boundaries are being questioned in Europe. We distinguish between boundary-making (defining or redefining the territorial borders of a polity), boundary-crossing (determining the rules of access to territorial borders) and boundary-unbundling (allowing boundary-making and boundary-crossing to vary between policies and polities), noting each of these categories possesses internal and external dimensions. Cosmopolitans and statists offer contrasting normative evaluations of these processes, favouring weakening and maintaining or strengthening state boundaries respectively. We endorse a demoicratic approach lying between these two as better reflecting how individuals relate to each other and to the EU, a view shared by some but not all contributors to this volume. We conclude by situating the contributions within our topological framework, highlighting how they illustrate the contemporary questioning of European boundaries.

8 citations


Cites background from "Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pl..."

  • ...Moreover, on this view, the demographic change likely to accompany an open or highly flexible boundary crossing regime is seen as a potential risk to the scheme of liberty and justice constituted at the national level (Walzer 1983, 1984)....

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  • ...Walzer (1983) insisted that the ‘complex equality’ of pluralist societies required some separation between different spheres of life if the values appropriate to one domain were not to dominate those of others....

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01 Jan 2011

8 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: One of the most passionately contested issues in the aftermath of the UK's decision to leave the European Union in the June 2016 referendum concerned the standing of EU citizens residing in the UK as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: One of the most passionately contested issues in the aftermath of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union in the June 2016 referendum concerned the standing of EU citizens residing in...

8 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the theoretical connections between legal positivism and communitarianism and found that they are relevant not only for a better understanding of these two trends of thought but also in order to throw light on important philosophical issues like human rights and democracy.
Abstract: The author deals with theoretical connections between legal positivism and communitarianism. Such connections prove to be relevant not only for a better understanding of these two trends of thought but also in order to throw light on important philosophical issues like human rights and democracy. Deep links are traced and recognized between the so-called positivism "in action, " and especially its ideological thesis, and communitarianism. Legal positivism is, obviously, a doctrine about law, while communitarianism is a conception of morality. Legal positivism is defended by scholars who tend to be liberal in politics and they fear that some liberal values like tolerance and the free pursuit of truth would be hampered if the tenets of positivismwhatever they are are rejected. On the other hand, communitarianism was developed precisely as a doctrine which controverts central liberal stands, and it is held by some scholars who seem to be friends of natural law rather than of positivism. Despite this somewhat pragmatical tension, there could logically be positivists about law who are either liberal or communitarian about political morality, as well as non-positivists who are of one or the other persuasion, which is a good indication that the two doctrines operate at different, unrelated, levels. Therefore, the possibility of significantly connecting these two movements seemed at first hopeless to me. However, when I began to probe more * I must confess that, when Professor Massimo La Torre invited me to speak at the European University Institute about positivism nnd communitarianism, I felt at first both flattered and puzzled. Flattered because I have written quite extensively about the two subjects and it is always good for an author that there remains some interest in discussing further what one has dealt with. Puzzled because I never dealt with the two topics together, and, at first sight, they seemed to me to be so far apart from each other that I envisaged the risk of treating them in a merely juxtaposed way. But the invitation of Professor La Torre to relate both issues proved, after all, to bevery wise indeed. This lecture wasgiven at the E.U.I. in Florenceon 22April1993. 0 Basil Blackwell Ltd. 1994, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF. UK and 2.38 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA. Positivism and Communitarianism 15 carefully into possible connections, I discovered that there are indeed such relevant connections, and, moreover, that they throw light on different issues concerning the treatment of human rights and democracy.

8 citations


Additional excerpts

  • ...For instance, Michael Walzer (1981) inveighs against the new ' I philosopher-kings" who try to influence mainly judges and mainly in the exercise of judicial review about what is the true set of rights enshrined in the Constitution whatever the experience of the people in their political practices....

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  • ...Walzer, Michael....

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  • ...In recent years, the liberal conception of rights has been put into question by philosophers who exhibit an acute intellectual sophistication: Charles Taylor (1985), Alasdair MacIntyre (1981), Michael Sandel (1982), and in part Michael Walzer (1983), Bernard Williams (1985), Stuart Hampshire (1983) and Susan Wolf (1982)....

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  • ...Sandel, Michael....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article argued that the persistent flow of Latino (and especially Mexican) immigrants into the USA threatens to divide the USA into "two peoples, two cultures and two languages" and pointed out the internal-colonist nature of the conflict model of cultural pluralism.
Abstract: In his essay ‘The Hispanic Challenge’, Samuel Huntington argues that the persistent flow of Latino (and especially Mexican) immigrants into the USA threatens to divide the USA into ‘two peoples, two cultures and two languages’. Most critics have dismissed the essay by focusing on the data Huntington presents so polemically, and on his rigid conception of ‘Anglo-Protestant culture’. And yet very few have analyzed it by looking closely at the theoretical tradition that Huntington’s work both stands in and furthers. Thus, the main objective of this commentary is to reveal that Huntington is working from within the conflict model of cultural pluralism, and especially its internal-colonialist type.

8 citations